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Thursday, May 27, 2010

The Trickle Effect

The Trickle Effect

Can technology save our planet? I wonder how many less trees are cut down by the use of email rather than paper bills and letters. Yea, I'm a tree hugger. Trees give us so much yet what do we give them in return?, some decorations at Christmas time... A few simple things that trees provide which people often forget about; shade and a nice breeze which also saves energy if you don't need the air conditioner or fan. Trees provide homes and recreation for birds. Watching and listening to birds sing, can lower your blood pressure and help relax you, which ='s saving on costly health care fees.

Lets do our part to save trees by reducing products that perpetuate their destruction.

Think of all the positives there are for using your computer to pay that bill or write that letter; you save paper of course, and more paper and money in not using stamps. If you have a messy handwriting like I do, and you type out an email, you know the receiver will be able to read what you write. It's a whole lot faster too! Well maybe just as long for paying bills, which is just an excuse, imho. And some email programs let you delete an email if it's not been read yet. Ya can't go digging inside a mail box for that Dear John letter once you change your mind. Well you can at the risk of being arrested. LOL

Have you ever smelled a paper manufacturing plant? They stink REALLY bad! I can not imagine having to live near one!

Did you know that florescent paper is more difficult to recycle? Oberlin College says it also produces "toxic sludge" during processing. The folks at Oberlin College in Ohio are the first college to implement the Source Reduction Program. Their efforts are campus wide as well as a page on their website which offers information for off campus recycling.

Some interesting facts about paper recycling:

* To produce each week's Sunday newspapers, 500,000 trees must be cut down.Gee I knew there was a reason I've never been into reading the newspaper, other than the ick that gets all over your hands
* The average American uses seven trees a year in paper, wood, and other products made from trees. This amounts to about 2,000,000,000 trees per year!I can't even comprehend that many trees or where they all come from!

* The amount of wood and paper we throw away each year is enough to heat 50,000,000 homes for 20 years. I'm making a small difference by creating art with locally found driftwood :0)

* Each ton (2000 pounds) of recycled paper can save 17 trees, 380 gallons of oil, three cubic yards of landfill space, 4000 kilowatts of energy, and 7000 gallons of water. This represents a 64% energy savings, a 58% water savings, and 60 pounds less of air pollution!

* The 17 trees saved (above) can absorb a total of 250 pounds of carbon dioxide from the air each year. Burning that same ton of paper would create 1500 pounds of carbon dioxide.

Check out a few of our team members who find creative ways to repurpose, reuse and recycle paper and wood products:

I firmly believe that any effort to recycle makes a difference. The biggest difference we can make in our planet's future is to teach our children, anyone's children not to litter and to recycle. Children are future caretakers of Mother Earth.

Here's a few resources for your children to explore and learn about growing up green:

We also do not use, paper towel, kleenex, TP (yes we really don't except when company comes 'cause they just don't get it), paper napkins, feminine hygiene products (I have a diva cup) and for our homeschooling we ALWAYS use both sides of the page, and then recycle.

I'm hoping to start making my own paper for craft projects out of all the bits and pieces of writing paper, junk mail and boxboard that I can't manage to repurpose :)

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